So the question arises, do the suburbs maintain a semblance of the larger-than-life appeal of their more famous neighbor?

Today, we’ll use science and data to determine which Springfield ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Springfield area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to Springfield proper, although Longmeadow certainly tries.

We examined the 20 biggest suburbs of Springfield to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t find them on the worst places to live in Massachusetts, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Springfield in terms of quality of life:

Holyoke

Palmer

Thompsonville

West Springfield

Chicopee

Hazardville

Westfield

Windsor Locks

Sherwood Manor

Broad Brook

Read on to see how we determined the places around Springfield that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger. And once you’re done, you can look at the bottom of the story for a complete chart of worst to best.

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How we determined the worst Springfield ‘burbs

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what cities have the least amount of those things. We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using the Census’s most recent 2010-2014 American Community Survey, this is the criteria we used:

Low unemployment (Less jobs)

Low median income (Less pay)

Low population density (No things to do)

Low home values (No one’s willing to pay to live here)

High number of high school drop outs

Then, we ranked each place that have over 5,000 people around Springfield for each of these criteria from worst to best.

The place with the lowest average rankings for these criteria ranks as the worst suburb of Springfield.

Read on below to learn more about these terrible places around Springfield to live. Or skip to the end to see the list of all 20 suburbs ranked from worst to best.

This list is a scientific analysis based on real data and is completely unbiased. Snarkiness incorporated for entertainment purposes only. Hold on to your pants.

1. Holyoke

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 40,079Median Income: $35,550Median Home Value: $186,100

2. Palmer

Source: Google Maps

Population: 12,155 Median Income: $51,846Median Home Value: $187,600

3. Thompsonville

Source: Google Maps

Population: 9,021Median Income: $48,302Median Home Value: $177,800

4. West Springfield

Source: Google Maps

Population: 28,554Median Income: $52,806Median Home Value: $200,000

5. Chicopee

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 55,603Median Income: $47,276Median Home Value: $174,300

6. Hazardville

Source: Google Maps

Population: 4,863Median Income: $72,500Median Home Value: $181,300

7. Westfield

Source: Wikipedia

Population: 41,371Median Income: $60,845Median Home Value: $221,800

8. Windsor Locks

Source: Google Maps

Population: 12,554Median Income: $67,222Median Home Value: $202,100

9. Sherwood Manor

Source: Google Maps

Population: 5,449Median Income: $74,833Median Home Value: $200,800

10. Broad Brook

Source: Google Maps

Population: 4,526Median Income: $74,298Median Home Value: $232,500

The areas around Springfield that you probably don’t want to live in

Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding Springfield with Holyoke landing ahead of the pack.

As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Springfield aren’t all bad. Longmeadow takes the cake as the best place to live around Springfield.

For the chart below, these are ranked from worst to best.
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